Alex Ombler - Tracing Your Docker Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians

Tracing Secret Service Ancestors

Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Family Photographs

Tracing Your Ancestors Using the Census

Tracing Your Ancestors Childhood

Tracing Your Ancestors Parish Records

Tracing Your Aristocratic Ancestors

Tracing Your Army Ancestors 2nd Edition

Tracing Your Birmingham Ancestors

Tracing Your Black Country Ancestors

Tracing Your British Indian Ancestors

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors

Tracing Your Channel Islands Ancestors

Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors

Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors

Tracing Your East Anglian Ancestors

Tracing Your East End Ancestors

Tracing Your Edinburgh Ancestors

Tracing Your First World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Gallipoli Campaign

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Somme

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: Ypres

Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors

Tracing Your Jewish Ancestors

Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors

Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors

Tracing Your Leeds Ancestors

Tracing Your Legal Ancestors

Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors

Tracing Your London Ancestors

Tracing Your Medical Ancestors

Tracing Your Merchant Navy Ancestors

Tracing Your Naval Ancestors

Tracing Your Northern Ancestors

Tracing Your Pauper Ancestors

Tracing Your Police Ancestors

Tracing Your Prisoner of War Ancestors: The First World War

Tracing Your Railway Ancestors

Tracing Your Royal Marine Ancestors

Tracing Your Rural Ancestors

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors

Tracing Your Second World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Servant Ancestors

Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors

Tracing Your Shipbuilding Ancestors

Tracing Your Tank Ancestors

Tracing Your Textile Ancestors

Tracing Your Trade and Craftsmen Ancestors

Tracing Your Welsh Ancestors

Tracing Your West Country Ancestors

Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors

A Guide for Family Historians

Alex Ombler

First published in Great Britain in 2019

PEN & SWORD FAMILY HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philaddelphia

Copyright Alex Ombler, 2019

ISBN 978 1 52674 404 3

eISBN 978 1 52674 405 0

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52674 406 7

The right of Alex Ombler to be identified as Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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The British dock labour force was one of the largest and most important working groups in the country during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1921 some 125,000 dockers were employed across the countrys numerous ports, where millions of tons of seaborne cargo were handled annually. Amongst the imported goods unloaded by the dockers were foodstuffs which fed the nation, whilst raw materials such as timber, cotton, wool and metal ores arrived on the docks for processing across various industries. The export cargos loaded by dock workers, mainly manufactures and coal, were sold overseas and brought wealth to the nation. In addition, the dockers contribution to trade unionism was a vital step in the creation of the modern labour movement. Most notably the Great Dock Strike of 1889 galvanized other unskilled workers into collective action to gain improvements in pay and working conditions.

Despite being an essential cog in Britains port transport system, the dockers remain a largely unknown group. Entry into dock work, which largely took place behind the dock wall, was virtually impossible for outsiders. Consequently the dockers working practices, organization and culture were shrouded in mystery. This was often exploited by the media who regularly scapegoated the dockers and their industrial action for the economic ills of the day. The cargo-handling revolution in the 1960s caused many of the old docks, quays and sheds where the dockers worked to fall into disuse and dereliction. During the 1980s, many of these areas were redeveloped as luxury waterfront accommodation, retail and business centres, and leisure sites.

Dockers at work in gangs unloading a cargo of bananas c. 1937. Image courtesy of Maritime Museum: Hull Museums.

Today there is little trace in the landscape that the dockers ever existed.

The aim of this book is twofold. First, it provides a history of the dockers from their origins in the mid-nineteenth century to their decline and eventual disappearance by the late 1980s. This history provides a background to the personal experiences of those who worked on the docks. It must be noted that, although Britains dockers as a whole were similar in character, the dock labour forces of each port had their own localized traditions, practices and terminology. As there is not space to deal with all of the nuances of dockland, the historical information in this book has been written with a general pattern of experience in mind. Second, the book identifies the types of records and artefacts that can give family historians an insight into the lives of the dockers. Furthermore, it provides a practical guide on where such sources can be found and how they can be accessed.

The first chapter is intended as a starting point and offers a guide on widely used family history sources. This will help establish a firm foundation of basic information including names, dates and places, upon which more specialized research can be built. The following Chapters 2 to 8 are thematic in nature and explore different aspects of dock life between c. 1840 and the 1960s. This includes the origins of the work force, the development of trade unionism on the docks, the daily working lives of the dockers, the tools they used, their culture and community outside of work, the role they played in both World Wars, and the Governments innovative attempts to improve their organization via the National Dock Labour Scheme. The final chapter deals with the technological developments in cargo-handling that emerged after the Second World War and the large-scale Government reforms in the port transport industry in response to such change. It also explores the how these reforms caused the decline and disappearance of the dockers culture and traditions, which had endured for generations.